


A New World Order

by eatsdeath



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Found Family, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29680818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatsdeath/pseuds/eatsdeath
Summary: The fall of the prison left him completely alone. Unable to find his dad. Unable to find Michonne. Unable to find Judith, Beth, Maggie, Carol, Glenn, Daryl. Carl was alone and alone he would stay. Surviving wasn’t hard as long as he avoided people. No more kid stuff; he could take care of himself. His dad may have forgotten. Inside the prison walls, it was easy to. But Carl hadn’t. He knows how to survive.
Relationships: Carl Grimes/Negan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	A New World Order

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! this is the only thing I'm going to post in the twd fandom. it's also the lowest priority of things I'm working on. i will update and work on it but I have no guarantees of speed. i also haven't watched twd since halfway through season 8. 
> 
> just heads up!

Silence falls over the clearing as the door of the RV swings closed behind him: Negan. Prideful swagger, the gait of a man who knows he has complete control brings him forward, barb wire-bound baseball bat slung over his shoulder. “Pissing our pants yet?” he drawls, a devilish smile curling on his mouth as gleaming eyes run along the group kneeling on the forest floor. “Boy, do I get the feeling we’re getting close,” Negan paces a slow row in front of them. “Yup, it’s gonna be pee-pee pants city here real soon.”

He steps into the middle of their lineup, gestures widely with his free hand, bat still atop broad shoulder. “Which one of you pricks is the leader?”

“It’s this one,” Simon, the asshole with the mustache they’d run into on the road, speaks up and Rick doesn’t have to look to know he’s being pointed out. He keeps his head down, not rising to the bait. “He’s the guy.”

Negan turns with a sigh, taking measured steps toward him. “You’re Rick, right? I’m Negan,” identity confirmed in a calm, easy tone that makes the hair on the back of Rick’s neck stand on end. “And I do not appreciate you killing my men. Also, when I sent my people to kill your people, you killed more of my people.” He pauses for a breath. “Not cool. Not. Cool. You have---,” dark eyes cut across to the other end of the line where Glenn and Daryl kneel before coming back to Rick. The dangerous amusement shining in his eyes replaced with cold anger. “---no idea how not cool that shit is. But, I think you’re gonna be up to speed shortly.” Another pause and Rick can’t stop himself from looking up, eyes meeting Negan’s. 

“Yeah,” he muses, “You are so gonna regret crossing me in a few minutes.” The mad grin comes back to his face. “Yes, you are. You see, Rick, whatever you do, no matter what, you don’t mess with the new world order. And the new world order is this, and it’s really very simple. So, even if you’re stupid, which you very well may be, you can understand. You ready? Here goes. Pay attention.” Negan pauses and, with a practiced movement, lifts the baseball bat from his shoulder, passing it to his right hand. Rick flinches, moving his head to the side as Negan holds the barb-wired tip close to his face.

“Give me your shit or I will kill you,” he says, leaning down and speaking slowly to make sure they understand him clearly. “Today was career day,” Negan straightens back again with a smile and resumes pacing. “We invested a lot so you would know who I am and what I can do.” He gestures with the bat as he walks down the line, “You work for me now.” Negan turns back to Rick. “You have shit, you give it to me. That’s your job. Now, I know that is a mighty big nasty pill to swallow but swallow it you most certainly will. You ruled the roost. You built something. You thought you were safe. I get it. But the word is out. You are not safe. Not even close. In fact, you’re pegged, more pegged if you don’t do what I want. And what I want is half your shit. And if that’s too much, you can make, find or steal more and it’ll even out sooner or later. This is your way of life now---”

The tall boy lurking near the front of the RV tunes out as Negan continues to talk. If there’s something that Carl has learned over the last couple of years, it’s that Negan loves to hear himself talk, a lot. And that’s something that he cannot relate to. Carl prefers observing in silence. It’s quite a pair they make: the loud-spoken King and his dangerous silent Prince.

There’s a buzz of familiarity in the group finally kneeling in front of them: something tickling the back of his mind. People he’s known in some almost forgotten past. He’s been with Negan for years, since after the prison, since everything that had happened next. Carl’s attention is drawn back to what’s happening when the Asian guy on the end – Glenn, an unhelpful, terrifying part of his mind supplies – lunges to put himself between Lucille and the sickly-looking woman – Maggie and panic curls in Carl’s belly.

“Alright, listen. Don’t any of you do that again. I will shut that shit down, no exceptions. First one’s free. It’s an emotional moment; I get it. Sucks, don’t it? The moment you realize you don’t know shit? I gotta pick somebody. Everybody’s at the table waiting for me to order.” Carl looks at the row of people closer, wide blue eye roaming over them as Negan contemplates his pick: Glenn, Daryl, Maggie, Sasha, Michonne, and Rick, his dad. The anxiety swells in him, fingers flexing around the hilt of his knife but it’s so easy, practiced, to tamp down when Negan gestures him forward.

“I simply cannot decide. You see, I’d happily fuck up any one of you. But, I’ve got an idea. That satellite station you all invaded, remember it? That was my boy’s.” He wraps his arm around Carl’s narrow shoulders and shows him off. Carl scans the group and their reactions to his face with an air of indifference. His remaining blue eye staring back at them. “He found it, took a team in to clean it out. And I let him run it. The men you killed? His men. And he is super pissed about it.” Negan’s body bounces, hips jutting forward in emphasis. “So it’s time for an eye for an eye,” his grin gets an eye roll from Carl and he hands Lucille to the teen. 

Carl tests her weight with a rotation of his wrist, stepping out of Negan’s grasp and out in front of the group. He wrestles his emotions into a box and shoves them in a deep corner of his mind, a small curl coming to his lips as he looks back over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Negan laughs, lips spreading in a wide grin before he counts him off. 

“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” The children’s rhyme accompanies every flourish of the baseball bat that Carl lifts and points at each Alexandrian in turn. “Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go.” There’s a pause and the whole clearing holds its breath before, “My mother told me to pick the very best on and you. Are. It.”

Carl holds the bat level with the ginger-haired man’s head and feels a surge of respect when the man adjusts himself to kneel up straighter, holds eye contact with him. Carl barely hears Negan warning them – “You can breathe; you can blink. You can cry. Hell, you’re all gonna be doing that.” – and he’s lifting the bat over his head. He doesn’t hear the screams and gasps as he lands the first blow; doesn’t hear Negan’s taunting as the man holds his ground before collapsing. There’s just the ringing in his ears and the warmth of blood as it hits his face. Carl’s breathing is heavy, arms burning by the time the man’s head is nothing more than a slushy smear on the forest floor.

“Look at my boy’s fine form and my dirty girl. Damn.” Razor-sharp eyes light on Rosita who is visibly barely holding it together as Carl steps back, Lucille still clenched in his grip, body poised: alert, aware. Dangerous. “Were you--- were you together? That sucks. But if you were, you should know there was a reason for all this. Red – and hell, he was, is, and will ever be Red – he just took one or six or seven for the team. So, take a damn look.” 

Carl is jostled, shoved out of the way by Daryl who’s lunging for Negan, who lands a punch to the man’s face before he’s wrestled to the ground and hauled back in line. “That? Oh, my! That is a no-no! That whole thing – not one bit of that shit flies here.” Negan grabs the bat from Carl as he steps forward. “Now I already told you people – first one’s free, then – what’d I say? I said I would shut that shit down, no exceptions! Now I don’t know what kind of lying assholes you’ve been dealing with but I’m a man of my word. First impressions are important. I need you to know me. So, back to it.”

The swing of the bat cuts through the heavy silence in the clearing, gasps rising again. Red warmth of Glenn’s blood flying from Lucille’s tip and land on Rick’s cheek from across the lineup. Carl blinks silently, watching Negan taunt Glenn and the others while he beats in the man’s skull. “Lucille is thirsty. She’s a vampire bat.” He finally stops swinging and looks around the semicircle chuckling. “What? Was the joke that bad?”

“I’m gonna kill you.”

Quick as a flash, Negan’s in front of and leaning down towards Rick. “What? I didn’t quite catch that. You’re gonna have to speak up.”

Rick shifts, sniffles and Carl can’t tear his eyes away from the two, “Not today. Not tomorrow but I’m gonna kill you.”

Damn, he’s got balls. Negan must admit that. This is far from the first time he’s done this and, at this point, those he’s forced into obedience had been sobbing and trembling, terrified for the rest of their people. And Rick? Rick, who’s just lost two of his people? There’s hate and rage and defiance in his eyes and nothing else but there’s something that feels familiar, something he should be able to reconcile. But Negan can’t quite put his finger on it. On the tip of his tongue but escaping recognition. So, he stares and keeps staring until Rick looks away, until those blue eyes flicker over to Carl who’s still standing beside him, and it lands. It hits him like a ton of bricks, the impossibility of things. But it has to be.

Rick of Alexandria they’ve heard about with his good cop in the end of the world, holier than thou attitude. Rick with the same blue eyes as Carl’s, eyes Negan’s looked at so often over the last few years. Rick fucking Grimes.

Negan sucks a breath in through his teeth, “Jesus.” Then he grins, chuckles, covers the lapse in his concentration. “Simon. What did he have? A knife?”

“Uh, he had a hatchet.”

Negan’s eyes flit over to Simon with an amused look, “A hatchet?”

“He had an ax.”

He chuckles again, looking back at Rick. “Simon’s my right-hand man. Having one of those is important. I mean, what do you have left without them? A whole lot of work. Do you have one? Maybe one of these fine people still breathing? Oh.” He cocks his head. “Or did my boy and I---” Negan clicks his tongue, makes a small batting motion and sighs. “Sure. Yeah. Give me his ax.” It’s smaller than he expected but if has a nice weight, strong handle. He grabs Rick by the collar and hauls him toward the RV. “I’ll be right back. Maybe Rick’ll be with me. And, if not, well, we can just turn these people inside out, won’t we? I mean, the ones that are left.”

The roar of the RV’s engine fades into the early morning mist and Carl watches until the red taillights disappear. The quiet of the clearing is broken only by the gasps and sobs of the family he’d once known. He raises an arm to wipe the blood from his cheek with his sleeve and he rolls his neck, his shoulders with a sigh as he turns back to the group. Blue eye wanders over them and he flinches when he makes eye contact: Michonne staring back at him. He doesn’t look away, watches her take in his face, the dark hole where his eye used to be. Carl breaks eye contact after a few moments, gaze falling to the side as her lips part around a soft whisper of his name. And just like that the spell breaks.

The click of Arat’s gun as she pulls back the hammer and aims it at Michonne, who’s still staring at Carl. He doesn’t hear, not listening close enough to hear what Arat says but her tone and the gun say everything he needs to know. “Arat,” he silences her with a soft command of her name, and a shake of his head has her backing off, stepping back into the fading shadows. Now that everyone’s attention is once again on him, Carl heaves another sigh, exhausted down to his bones. His attention flits over to Simon and the teen tilts his head, having the man take his place in front of the clearing as Carl steps out of the center of attention and into the cab of the closest truck.

Carl follows the direction of the RV, parking atop the bridge that looks down on where Negan is shoving Rick out of the camper into the swarm of walkers. Confident and commanding, “Bring me my ax.” This is the first moment since recognition set in that Carl doesn’t feel worried. He stays back enough so he can’t be seen over the edge of the bridge as Rick clambers onto the roof and lays there. It doesn’t last. Any calm he’d felt fades away at the reminder of their safe little town with walls and normalcy, a stark contrast to what he’s used to in the Sanctuary with its cold concrete and fences. The Governor's Woodbury to the West Georgia Correctional Facility. The thought crosses his mind and makes him freeze, bile rising in his throat before he empties the meager contents of his stomach onto the pavement. The sharp noise of gunshots spurs him (and Rick) back into action and Carl gets back in the truck. The quiet of the clearing feels a safer place to hide in his head. He wants to go, wants to sleep for a week after the last 36 hours. Setting up roadblocks and showing the Alexandrians who Negan is and learning that they were alive when he’s made himself believe they were dead for so long; it’s more that he can take. He knows Simon, at least, would be able to handle things and not ask questions. And Negan...had he known? Does he know? Carl shakes the thought out of his head as he climbs back into the truck and heads back to the clearing. He sits in the cab in silence until the RV comes roaring back into sight. 

Negan throws Rick back out into the dirt and gets him back on the ground with the Alexandrians as Carl climbs out of the truck and goes back to leaning against the RV.

“Let me ask you something, Rick -- do you know what that little trip was about?” He doesn’t answer and it’s obvious it irks Negan. “Speak when you’re spoken to.” Carl’s eye falls back to Rick who’s panting, looking at the ground.

“Okay. Okay.” The hard look in his eyes has faded and Carl knows before Negan speaks that that had been his goal.

“That trip was about the way you looked at me. I wanted to change that. I wanted you to understand.” He crouches down, gets right in Rick’s face. “You answer to me. You provide for me. You belong to me, right?” The silence lingers a beat too long, waiting for Rick to respond. “Speak when you’re spoken to. You answer to me. You provide for me. You belong to me, right?”

Rick breathes heavily, “Right.”

Negan grins, “That is the look I wanted to see.” He stands, gestures to all of them. “We did it, all of us together, even the dead guys on the ground. Hell, they get the spirit award for sure.” He sighs. “Today was a productive damn day! Now, I hope, for all your sake that you get it now. That you understand how things work. Things have changed. Whatever you had going for you: that is--” He laughs again. “--over now.”

Negan walks over to where Carl leans against the RV and looks at him carefully. The teen stares right back at him, not wavering, careful that whatever he’s feeling doesn’t show in his eye. Negan chuckles and wraps his arm around Carl’s shoulders, turning back to face them. He points to Daryl with the bloody bat. “Dwight, load him up.” They all watch the blonde man haul the archer into the back of the van. “He’s got guts -- not a little bitch like someone I know. He’s mine now. But you still want to try something? ‘Not today, not tomorrow?’ I will cut pieces off of -- hell’s his name?”

“Mm..Daryl.” Simon offers with a grin.

“Wow,” Negan chuckles. “That actually sounds right. I will cut pieces off of Daryl and put them on your doorstep -- or, better yet, I will bring him to you and have you do it for me.” He grins again. “Ah! Welcome to a brand new beginning, you sorry shits! I’m gonna leave you a truck. Keep it. Use it to cart all the crap you’re gonna find me.”

He looks down and Carl can feel his eyes boring into the side of his skull but he doesn’t move his gaze from the group in front of them. He knows. Negan knows. But of course, he does. The razor-sharp gaze leaves him. “We’ll be back for our first offering in one week. Until then, ta-ta.”

Carl doesn’t look at the man as they climb into the truck; doesn’t look in the rearview as they drive away. He lays his head back on the seat and stares at the ceiling as they drive; Negan’s body too close, too warm and the anxiety comes back, itching at his insides. Carl needs a week to recover, to be ready to face them all again. His eye falls closed, letting the movement of the truck distract him from Negan’s stare.

The teen’s actions make it clear that this is something he’s not talking about. Negan watches Carl lay back against the seat as they drive. This kid was something else; hard as steel but fragile as glass. Dangerous and badass but so many anxieties lurk beneath the surface. Not that Negan blames or begrudges that. The boy has seen, has been through some shit. Shit that no one, let alone someone as young as him should ever experience. 

Carl had been something else when they’d stumbled upon him in the woods so many years ago. Skittish and wild; a flip of a coin as to how he’d react at any given moment: shut down or attack, sparks coming off flint. Negan still wasn’t entirely sure the teen trusted any of them. He knows all about Rick, about Lori, Michonne, Shane, Dale. He’s been told stories of Sophia, Glenn, Maggie, Beth, Herschel. Negan knows Carl’s story: from before, from Atlanta, the CDC, the Greene’s farm, the prison. But Carl’s never spoken about what happened between the fall of the prison and the firefight where Negan had found him standing amongst the recently dead, bleeding from a gunshot to the face. He keeps that buried in himself and it feeds the dark. And that darkness pooling beneath the surface makes Carl the best damn thing he’s seen in years. His radass, badass second in command. Negan’s gaze stays on Carl the whole ride back to the Sanctuary; he ignores the driver and his quick glances at them. He may have to kill him — nosy people see too much. More than they should; sometimes more than is there.

He feels relief when they pull through the Sanctuary’s gates and nudges Carl once the truck rumbles to a stop. “C’mon, kid. Home sweet home.”

Negan slips out of the cab, holding the door open with Lucille’s tip until the teen climbs out. Then he’s backing Carl against the side paneling, pinning him there with a sharp gaze and a hand on his shoulder, thumb on the soft skin of the boy’s throat. The bustle of Saviors around them is ignored as he puts all his attention on the teen. Carl doesn’t meet his eyes, gaze focused somewhere around his scarf, and Negan sighs. 

“Carl—”

“Don’t.”

Negan blinks when that blue eye raises to his, dark and cold as ice.

“Just— don’t.”

Tearing his gaze away, Carl ducks under his arm and disappears into the swarm around them, swallowed up by the movements of their people. Negan grits his teeth before fixing his normal grin to his face and goes about yelling at the Saviors who still, unluckily, lurk around.

Carl walks and walks, not paying attention to those around him or even where his feet are leading him. He doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to think. The teen knows he should go help with something, do something but all he wants is to shower and to sleep. He pulls up short when he realizes his feet have taken him not to his room but to Negan’s. He snarls, lips pulling back in a sneer before he turns, forces himself to keep walking. Back to the stairs, up two flights, and passed Negan’s wives’ rooms. 

His room is the highest in the Sanctuary, tucked beyond the stairs that lead up to the roof. Carl sighs heavily, drops his gun on the table by his bed, and toes off his boots. He makes the conscious decision not to sit, knows if he does he won’t get back up any time soon. His hunting knife is placed on the bathroom counter; ratty jeans and too thin shirt are dropped carelessly on the floor. Carl turns the water on as hot as it will go, which isn’t very, and steps under the stream that is just barely hot enough. It’s relaxing enough anyway, nice to feel the last couple of days slide off, the pounding of water easing the ache and strain of muscles. 

He stands under the spray longer than usual, longer than he should but Carl doesn’t want to go out and face reality just yet. And, the reality is, that Negan is probably in his room waiting to chat with him. His actions by the truck speak for themselves. Because, again, he loves to hear himself talk and he loves to try and make Carl talk. But he can’t, doesn’t want to. Doesn’t have the words to describe what he feels right now. The result of going through his childhood and early teenage years alone in a world that doesn’t care. 

His hair sticks to his neck and knots pull when he runs his hand through it. His hair is only long on the left side of his head and in the back. Long enough to be pulled back and kept out of his face with a tie. Carl keeps the right side cut short, almost shaved. Negan loves to show off his eye and that makes it easier. But Carl hates the way the scar itches when hair brushes baby-soft against it.

The water pressure sputters and he washes his hair quickly and efficiently before turning it off and stepping out to dry. Carl wraps his towel around him and grabs the knife off of the counter. It joins his gun on the table by his bed when he steps into his room and, by some miracle, Negan isn’t in the room. He sighs heavily but dresses in soft pants and a too-big t-shirt he’s pretty sure is Negan’s. Carl wrings the water from his hair and grabs the brush Negan had found him: baby blue and silver, “Like that eye of yours, darling.” At which, Carl had rolled said eye and snatched the brush from him intending to throw it in a drawer and never lay eyes on it again. But now he brushes his hair fairly normally. It grounds him, keeps him feeling normal. Human.

Carl sits on the floor, sounds of the Sanctuary filtering up to him and he allows himself to take in what he learned today. They’re alive: his family. His dad, Michonne, Maggie, Daryl. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to hope that they were still alive. Carl is a different person than he was the last time he’d seen them: fighting the Governor at the prison. He’s older, the survivor he always has been only more so. He doesn’t let himself rely on other people. The only person he trusts to protect and take care of him is himself. If the Sanctuary were to fall right this moment, Carl would survive on his own. He’s done it before and, better prepared this time, he could do it again.

He sits and waits for the quiet to settle in, waits until he assumes Negan has either gone to sleep or gone to bed with one of his wives before he straps his gun holster back on his thigh, knife at his waist, and creeps down the stairs. He grabs an apple and a bottle of water from their stores and retreats back up in the darkness. Carl sits on the stairs between Negan’s room and his wives’ to eat his snack. Things are mostly silent now - everyone who’s not on guard duty (or a walker outside) is asleep. But Carl’s not sure he can. There’s too much in his head: thoughts, emotions he can’t name or even really put his finger on.

He’s pulled from his thoughts when Negan’s door opens and he tenses; he should have just gone back to his room. But it isn’t Negan; it’s Sherry slipping out into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind her. She doesn’t look surprised to see him - doesn’t startle visibly - and offers him a small smile. “Why are you still up? You should get some sleep. Everyone else is.” She passes her hand through his hair when he shrugs and she steps around him to go back to her room. Carl sighs and leans against the wall. She’s right; he needs to get some sleep. They haven’t slept in 48 hours and he is exhausted to his bones. 


End file.
